Do you have experience with running your game where all actions declared are taken in the same turn, instead of going around the table sand then acting again?

So if my smuggler wants to take his three blaster shots, he takes them all in a row (minus any penalties of course), rather than one shot, then wait for everyone else to act before taking the next shot?

Is it game breaking?

One of the reasons I am looking at the Mini-Six system is because it does this.

I played this way using the 2E R&E rules. In some ways, it was more fun.

When we first tested it out, a character swing around a doorway, fired a shot, then jumped across to the other side of the door and flipped the stormtroopers off, using the bird.

Not very Star Wars, but it was funny. We all cracked up. And, the continuous action sold itself that way. The players liked it.

Now, I will say that I was awarding too many Character Points at this point in my Star Wars game. I was awarding the amount for an entire adventure at the end of one night. That translates into protection for the PCs.

We didn't use the declaration phase, then, either. We just rolled initiative, and when that character went, I just asked him what he wanted to do. And, he did it.

Today, I would not allow this method of play. I do think it has an effect on play. Who can withstand 3 blaster shots, back to back? Nobody.

Back then, the CPs I awarded would eat up shots like this. But, I also found it made the PCs too powerful.

A Wookiee ran out into streaming blaster bolt combat and tore the leg off a AT-ST. As a GM, I was going through Stormtroopers right and left. I'd always have to add to the number that was indicated in an adventure. And, the PC's freighter, which was no Millennium Falcon, could easily take out the entire TIE squadron compliment of an Imperial Star Destroyer.

My players thought that they were BIG DAMN HEROES and actually loved it.

I knew that I had broken the game--and it became hard for me to wean the off the extra CPs and the continuous combat actions. In fact, I never did it until I just plain changed editions--now we play First Edition, and I play it as written.

As long as both the enemy as well as the pcs get all their actions at once, and not just the PC's i am ok with it.._________________It's Not who you kill, but how they die!
You cannot dodge it if you do not know it is coming, and you cannot hit it if you do not know its there.

Do you have experience with running your game where all actions declared are taken in the same turn, instead of going around the table sand then acting again?

So if my smuggler wants to take his three blaster shots, he takes them all in a row (minus any penalties of course), rather than one shot, then wait for everyone else to act before taking the next shot?

Is it game breaking?

...Any thoughts?

Naaman wrote:

We always played this way. I see value in both ways, but bapance is not one of the concerns I have.

The first priority of a game is fun. Do what is most fun, otherwise, why play?

garhkal wrote:

As long as both the enemy as well as the pcs get all their actions at once, and not just the PC's i am ok with it..

Winning Initiative in RAW means that side gets their first actions before the other side, not multiple actions per character before the other side. With this house rule of allowing multiple actions per character turn in a round, if the PCs almost always win Initiative then they can do a ton of actions before the NPCs can act once. I'm ok with the PC side having a character that usually wins Initiative, but that's only because every PC can't do multiple actions in the round before the other side gets even one.

I feel this house rule could be game breaking if the player group had a high Initiative PC. It would be imbalanced in favor of the PCs. Conversely, if the PCs had all low Initiative PCs and they often lost Initiative, the campaign could be over pretty quick with a TPK if they ever faced any competent enemies.

And yes, fun for all should be the #1 rule, but I do not feel it would be fun for a lot of battles to be over in the first round because the NPCs never got a shot off. Where is the sense of action-adventure in that? Also, that wouldn't represent the reality of the films very well, so it wouldn't be very fun for me if it didn't feel like the campaign could take place in the same world as the films. GMs already give up a lot of aspects of fun that the players have, but I'm not a completely selfless GM who doesn't need to have any fun at all. I'd be disappointed if I had a group of players who wanted combat to be over in one round that much, but even if I did, that wouldn't allow the game to be fun for me at all, so that would be a deal breaker.

ebertran wrote:

One of the reasons I am looking at the Mini-Six system is because it does this.

I can't speak from any experience in playing Mini-Six, but I can say that Mini-Six was designed to be an extremely easy-to-mange, rules-light game. In RPGs in general, too much rules can be too crunchy and complex and time consuming, while overly simplified rules can allow for more outrageous situations just for the sake of ease of play. It is highly debatable where the happy medium is, and ultimately each GM must decide where their game system falls in this spectrum.

Maybe this rule isn't as much of an issue with some of the other simplifications of Mini-Six, so it is possible that GMs can make this work better there. But I suggest caution when mixing rules of game systems far apart on this simplistic/crunchy spectrum. That being said, of course you should do whatever works for you and your group. Maybe your group could agree to try it for an adventure and see how it goes?_________________*
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I noticed that in my game, too. What Whill described. The PCs in my game always went first. They had better stats, and it was a rare occasion when a stormtrooper or some other NPC got lucky on the Wild Die and went first.

Plus, since initiative is PER based in 2nd edition (it is skill based in 1st edition), those races, like Lorddians, which can get high PER scores, get a hell of an advantage over other characters--being able to go first and devastate an opponent with multiple actions.

That's quite a few templates for enemies to have, with high per. And the highlighted ones i can EASILY see being enemies of the party.._________________It's Not who you kill, but how they die!
You cannot dodge it if you do not know it is coming, and you cannot hit it if you do not know its there.

So you have never sent the pc;s against imp army troops? Naval ships??_________________It's Not who you kill, but how they die!
You cannot dodge it if you do not know it is coming, and you cannot hit it if you do not know its there.

Oh, for sure. But I've typically been a player, not GM. If the ratio of bad guys to PCs is anywhere near 1:1, then, sure, its typically a short fight, but when we start getting out numbered, there comes a point where you have to choose how much you want to risk failure.

I'll also offer the counterpoint that under these house rules, even just 1 royal guardsman with his 8D+2 force pike skill was always a dire threat to the entire PC party until late in the campaign, when we eventually surpassed that.

Also note that, it seems only natural to me that a GM would unconsciously scale the difficulty as the heroes gain power: at some point, there is just no point in confronting the hereoes with a squad of stormtroopers. How many stormtroopers did Luke kill in RotJ? I think just 2, and those were incidental.

In ESB, he took down an ATAT by himself... and a wampa. He has also defeated a Rancor WITHOUT his lightsaber... etc.

I don't mind characters being able to wrap up actions all at once. But, in the interest of fairness, I've house ruled that every 5 points that a character wins initiative over the other allows him to take an additional action before his opposition.

I've been playtesting this in a solo game I've been running and have been pretty pleased with the results so far. After the counter goes down to zero, I've been allowing all actions to be resolved simultaneously.

Also, I'm using a new skill list which has replaced search with Situational Awareness, which has become the new initiative skill._________________RR
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I don't mind characters being able to wrap up actions all at once. But, in the interest of fairness, I've house ruled that every 5 points that a character wins initiative over the other allows him to take an additional action before his opposition.

You realize that this is a HUGE advantage to the PCs, yes? Your PCs are bound to have better PER scores than most of their enemies.

I mention this because you said that you did it in the interest of fairness.

And as GM, I have limitless resources. Also, if you read on a little further, Search has been replaced, which means my NPCs can have Situational Awareness skills that rival or are higher than the players depending on my whim. It all balances out in the end. I like the approach, because initiative doesn't end up as a min/max exercise where players max out Dex/Per/Str to make a combat beast, instead, they can raise their skill to eventually catch up with characters who have a higher attribute. It is fair.

Even with the "HUGE advantage" it took almost no time for the character to be overrun with Super Battle Droids, which on their own aren't exactly tough opponents. All it took was a crappy damage roll or two, and before too long the 2 droids at a time he was shooting down turned into 5 that managed to back him into a corner and forced the use of a force point to survive. It makes for better drama.

I'm not terribly worried about giving the players a few advantages over nameless mooks, the bigger the ego, the quicker they find themselves outmatched._________________RR
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